The invention relates to an apparatus for hardening the inside contour of a gun barrel with laser radiation. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for hardening the inside contour of a gun barrel with laser radiation, which apparatus is of the type including a laser, and a laser head, which can be disposed to be displaced along the bore axis of the gun barrel and which has beam-deflecting optics, so that the laser radiation can be coupled into the muzzle of the gun barrel and guided perpendicularly to the inside surface of the gun barrel by means of the beam-deflecting optics.
To maintain a low level of erosion of the respective gun barrel due to the hot propellant gases, or a low level of abrasive wear caused by the friction between the projectile and the gun barrel, and thereby extend the service life of the weapon, it is known to provide the inside surface of the gun barrel, usually comprising steel, with a hard-metal layer, for example, a chromium layer or an alloy layer containing chromium (e.g. a cobalt-chromium-tungsten alloy).
A disadvantage of such gun barrels is that the application of the surface layer is a relatively complicated process, and the layer frequently chips off and washes out, which shortens the service life of the gun barrels.
It is further known, from German Published Patent Application No. DE 195 44 824 A1, to harden the inside surface of the respective gun barrel through a thermal surface treatment with laser beams (transformation hardening). In this process, the laser radiation of a CO.sub.2 laser is coupled axially into the muzzle of the gun barrel, and is conducted, with the aid of a laser head disposed to be displaced in the gun barrel and including beam-deflecting optics, perpendicularly to the inside surface of the gun barrel to be hardened.
A drawback of this known laser arrangement is that the use of the CO.sub.2 laser necessitates a relatively rigid beam-guidance system, so the processing space is limited. In addition, it cannot be determined from this publication how the relative motion necessary between the gun barrel and the laser head could be realized.
It therefore is the object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for transformation hardening of the inside contour of a gun barrel, with which the gun barrel can be hardened very precisely and homogeneously; in addition, the processing space can be increased with the intended use of the apparatus.